For more than forty years, the U.S. government tested nuclear weapons deep in the Nevada desert. Now, the site is reminder of what a scary world that was. CNET Road Trip 2012 investigated.

MERCURY, Nev.–From the side that faced away from the blast, you might never have even have bothered to look at it. But walk around the other side of the concrete dome, and there’s no question something extraordinary happened here.
Welcome to the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site. As part of Road Trip 2012, I’ve come to visit this 1,375-square mile expanse of harsh desert and even harsher mountains that begins about 75 miles north of Las Vegas. Here, from 1951 through 1992, a total of 928 nuclear weapons exploded, many of them sending instantly familiar giant mushroom clouds high into the skies above.

Subscribe

About

The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

Choose Language / 言語

Additional Notes / 謝辞

The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

Contact / 連絡先

If you have any questions, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago at 773-702-2715 or japanatchicago@uchicago.edu.